Diastolic left ventricular (LV) dysfunction remains one of the most important cardiac diseases for which current noninvasive diagnostic techniques remain inadequate. For instance, more than 60% of women admitted for congestive heart failure have diastolic dysfunction as the cause of their symptoms. However, current noninvasive diagnostic criteria (primarily utilizing echocardiography) are able to reliably classify only 60-70% of the patients.
Central to the idea of diastolic dysfunction is the alteration of the pressure-volume relationship of the left ventricle. This relationship is best evaluated under dynamic changes in the ventricular loading condition e.g. while the patient is breathing.
Fast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques have enabled the acquisition of volumetric datasets within a patient-tolerable examination time. However, many patient datasets are “corrupted” by dynamic physiologic motion. Much of the research in volumetric data acquisition has been aimed at removing these dynamic effects. The present invention takes a different approach and provides a method and system to acquire and display the effect of these dynamic physiologic changes (either spontaneous or induced) on cardiac function to elucidate their effects on diastolic myocardial function.